Wednesday, 2 March 2016

She was the best of us.

Hidden
among the opening credits of the film “Neerja” is a "Special Thanks" to Bombay
Scottish School. Somewhere in the closing credits is a photo of the titular character as a
schoolgirl, wearing the grey smock and navy-blue tie that was and remains the
school uniform.

For you
see, Neerja Bhanot, who died saving the passengers of PanAm flight 73 from terrorists on September 5, 1986, was from Bombay Scottish School, and she was the best of us.

When I was
a student of Bombay Scottish, of just 'Scottish' as it is commonly known, the Great Assembly Hall (a.k.a the
Gamaliel Hall, ‘Big Hall’, ‘New Hall’) was where, every morning, the students of the School trooped in for morning prayers. We tunelessly sang some psalms,
hoped our shoes were polished enough to escape scrutiny from the prefects and
hoped the Principal would not take too much time with his daily harangue. (Yes,
it was a practice for the Principal to give a daily speech in which he spelled
out how the school, the country and the world had regressed from the ‘good old
days’.)

Still looks exactly like this

I clearly
recall as well the big wooden boards bearing the names of those who had done
the school proud over the years. Toppers in the ICSE Board exams,
their names written year-wise, beginning from a time before the country
obtained independence. Spend enough time in that hall and the names start to
become familiar. I spent a dozen years there, and often wondered what they must have looked like, those
long-forgotten souls, and what they would be doing now. But I never heard
those names again, not in newspapers as people who had done something great, something wonderful. No doubt they went on to become professionals and
businessmen, good family men and forward-thinking women, a credit to the school
that shaped them.

But you
won’t find the name of Neerja Bhanot on those lists, though she was the best of us, and
did more than the rest put together.

From a modelling shoot

Bombay
Scottish School is all about prestige. It is a school with a history, a school whose
students could stand tall in a gathering of elites from anywhere in India - essentially, it is Bombay’s answer to Mayo College and Doon School.

Scottish was
established before the Mutiny of 1857, it had a basketball court, a football
field, a volleyball court and a badminton court in addition to a gym, a very
well-stocked library, spacious classrooms and clean toilets, and teachers who
were on the whole, more motivated and knowledgeable than their counterparts
elsewhere. It taught – or tried to teach – its students the classic values of
the Scottish Protestants who had been its founders – perseverance, fairness, respect.
For all that, though, it was a playground of the wealthy. When I was there, the
student make-up of the school was a mix of the children of the super-rich –
actors, sportsmen, businessmen – and the upwardly-mobile middle classes. You
wouldn’t find a typical Bollywood rags-to-riches story in Scottish. Everyone
was at least reasonably well-off, most had a car or two and spoke to each other
on equal terms. Indeed, class distinctions did not rear their ugly heads and
neither, I am proud to say, did religious disharmony, even though we lived
through the communal riots of 1992-93.

But before
there was 1992-93, there was 1986, when a young girl, just out of her teens,
saved the lives of over three hundred and fifty souls, Hindus and Muslims and
Christians, Indians and Pakistanis and Americans.

Her name was
Neerja Bhanot, and she was the best of us.

Schools are
about more than buildings and facilities and teachers. It is their alumnus that distinguishes them. Other
Schools boast of their Prime Minsters, their artists, their captains of industry and their sportspersons.

A
smattering of minor businessmen aside, Bombay Scottish’s only contribution to
Indian history is to Bollywood. The Kapoor family has been a mainstay, from
Shammi and Shashi in the fifties to Ranbir who was my contemporary. Amir Khan
and his nephew Imran were there as well, so was Hrithik Roshan in his time, and
for a while at least, Abhishek Bachhan. There were also John Abraham, Ekta
Kapoor and her even-less-illustrious sibling and no doubt a host of other less
famous names.

No underdogs there - all privileged children of parents
who had already done the work of getting their children up among the elite.

No doubt
there are sportsmen whose trophies are still dusted daily in that tall case
outside the Principal’s office; sportsmen who have long since hung up their
boots for a life of comfortable white-collared obscurity. Shields baring the names of powerful debaters
whose eloquence restricts itself to weekly team meetings. Even, perhaps, certificates bearing the names of talented essayists
who now write hack pieces like this for blogs that are hardly ever read.

And one of
those alumni was a lady named Neerja Bhanot, and she was the best of us.

She showed
what courage under fire really is. She showed us that a supposedly spoiled, pampered
middle class girl from an elite school can be as brave, as resourceful, as much
a martyr as a man with a big gun. That being an air-hostess (or steward) is not
just about a pretty smile and a nice hairdo, but about staying calm under
unprecedented pressures. That sometimes, the so-called effete, coddled, much-reviled
upper-middle-classes can throw up people just as brave, distinguished and
heroic as those who have suffered from early reversals of fate, heart-breaking
childhood poverty and unbelievably difficult circumstances.

Sonam Kapoor at Bombay Scottish to promote the movie.

She is the
subject of a film that bears her name. A film on whose merits I am not
qualified to comment, since I make no claim to understanding movies, as I have
said before. Maybe the direction is good, maybe it is not. Perhaps Sonam Kapoor
has done a stellar job, perhaps she has not. The story of Neerja Bhanot is
a story that is powerful, and Ram Madhavani tells it simply, in a
straightforward fashion, which is all that is needed. How much of it is
perfectly true? I don’t know, but the movie has a ring of authenticity. Do I
recommend that anyone who reads this should watch the movie? I don’t know, I
don’t do recommendations any more, after all. But too few people knew she existed
until the movie came out – at least now, those who did not know about her before are aware of
this remarkable young woman. For that, I do thank the producers and the director and everyone else involved with this movie. As for me, I did know about Neerja, but then she was a legend
at Bombay Scottish in my time.

For you
see, though her name does not feature on the list of toppers, and though no
trophy in the case outside the Principal’s office bears her name, and though
perhaps those who passed through that Big Hall long after my term was up do not
know that she had once stood there too...Neerja Bhanot was from Bombay Scottish School and she was the best of us.

7 comments:

This came straight from your heart Percy, as is evident in every word you wrote, every sentiment you shared. Neerja's singular courage and your articulation, makes it the best thing I have read in a long time.

Beautifully written for a beautiful movie! I loved that ur piece isn't a review of performances, or a debate on what actually may have transpired that day (the usual course reviews on neerja takes). I loved the message in the movie, well brought out in ur blog, that regular, cheerful, pretty girls with doting parents are capable of bravery and of a lot more than the judgmental society around them gives them credit for.

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About Me

Percy Slacker was bitten by Schrodinger’s Cat as a child, and has since then combined a deep fear of cats with an
abiding conviction that he both exists and does not exist at the same
time. This existential doubt has led him
to grow up to be a writer while not actually being a writer.

He lives in Mumbai with his family, his book collection and a firm
conviction that modern civilization is in an interminable decline.